


Double Distilled

by piecesofalice



Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-02
Updated: 2010-01-02
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:37:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofalice/pseuds/piecesofalice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Stop smoking, Bobby."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Distilled

\--------------

  
Curls and wands of smoke, like those luxurious fabrics you'd see in boudoirs or whorehouses, flow around the room in time with the music.

  
_Stop smoking, Bobby,_ she's tsking. Stop drinking and thinking and reading until your eyes fall out; forced closed by forty-eight hours of activity and pinned down for only four. Exhaustion wrecks your face, once (probably) considered interesting and boyish - now just ravaged and at best, wise.

  
Sessions like these, with you in your undershirt and suit pants surrounded by ground-out butts and a 3/4 empty bottle of Jack, smack of clichés and gumshoe stereotypes but hell, it helps you shut down for at least four hours and dream of smoke and music so it can't be all that bad.

  
_Stop lamenting, Bobby,_ she'd sigh. _Stop thinking and just do_. Then she'd pull you aside, against a wall that isn't in her apartment or yours, but seems to fit the filling fantasy just fine. Her coat is open, spilling leopard print lining, your hands pressing the folds against the foreign wall while she grinds into you. You don't think she'd be the grinding type - like strippers after a buck or hookers after a dime - but, still, it fits the fantasy and at this point, that's cool.

  
So the grinding continues, the leopard print fanned across the placard flooring and her shirt following suit. You haven't even kissed, dilly-dallying around it with legs and hands and hair, your nose pushed into her neck, as the both of you seem to be just - being. This, you know through the smoke, isn't Playboy or Penthouse but how it really would be - and that turns you on more than a dominatrix-cum-Eames ever could.

  
But, you are digressing. This isn't a tiger carpet-roaring fire-mink coat clad over nothing-underwear-fantasy, a mock-up of faces but lax personalities - you are seeing it like it would be, could be - her thin hair sticking to your lips as you help her out of her tank top; her sensible work shoes (one on the couch, the other under it), your wife beater and five o'clock shadow as per usual.

Like you'd just walked off the worst job ever, where families are murdered and lovers perform Shakespeare for real. Blood and mucus and filth, a jigsaw puzzle of gore hardening and silencing but never really ever desensitizing your soul - not now, not now you've seen that oft touted black underbelly of society and have both walked away from it.

  
***

  
"He's so weird," you hear them whisper to your then-girlfriends, their best friends sneering over salt-rimmed goblets like ladies in waiting to a princess who never really arrived. That was college, this was now - no longer did you have to crawl into your single bed with flannel sheets in a dorm room emptied by a toga party in 4D. Now you could curl up in a sweat-saturated ball on your beat-up leather couch in the most anonymous city in the world and be as weird as you freakin' want.

  
Girlfriend after girlfriend (_"Intense, a good lay, so detached!, so not relationship material"_), partner after partner (_"intense, unorthodox, a raving lunatic!, I request a new partner"_), until Little Miss 5 foot 2, with a penchant for fine winter coats and coffee after coffee after coffee, flounced - no, blew - into the desk in front of you like a tiny whirlwind, or worse - like reality in guise of an ex-vice cop.

  
_Stop keeping things from me!_ She'd exclaim, _stop visiting leads and following witnesses without me!_ Until one day, their routines matched and your eyes flicked to hers in silent communication when The Bad Guy told a fib or the 'alibi' tried to throw you for a loop.

  
When did it stop being a partnership and become a pairing? You don't know, you don't know if she knows and you know she wouldn't want you to know if she did know - so you continue to ball up on your couch, whiskey and smoke, and continue on with a silent one-person movie before going to work in the morning and pretend, puzzle and snoop while thinking about life within her, but outside her.

  
**

  
You know whatever this nighttime daydream encompasses; it would not end in sex. Sex wasn't above them, or below - it was something lovers did and lovers they were not. It was so drawn out, so languid and turtle-versus-the-hare that sex, after this first imagined touch, seemed worthless; like fighting for second prize when the first was everything.

  
_Stop being so flowery_, she'd laugh, _stop thinking and just do!_ So you do, dipping your head the necessary foot or so and scoop her up like a present. You stare at her, the smile of before fading into seriousness as neither of you know exactly how to initiate a kiss with the other.

  
If touching an arm took years, a kiss could take decades. But you knew if you didn't do it now, now and not in ten years, four months and twenty-one days, you'd burst in all the ways literary giants wrote about when writing about the great eternal road of emotion that lead to moments like this. How awful it would be if you really did, physically, burst; and how awful it would be to have Logan and Wheeler investigating their blow-apart bodies with the scientific detachment you understood so well. How much work it would be for the CSU, for the coroner, for -

  
_Too literal_, she'd whisper to you, laughing a little. Then you'd both duck and connect like dragons on Chinese New Year with fluidity and fireworks to boot.

  
It feels different but the same as not kissing; like Belgian chocolates after a lifetime of Hershey's. The skin of her like refined sugar, whole cream milk, the secrets of Godiva or Aphrodite or whatever (you're not a classics major, remember - you'd once read a book on Greek Myths for a case and a how-to on Semiotics you'd found in the police library), your mouth moving like it wasn't yours, a small sharp moan poking into your psyche and setting your libido up for life.

  
So this was kissing while in love, you knew she was thinking, a first kiss mixed with love and trust and desire. So this was kissing without looking over your shoulder, waiting for the flood, the avalanche, the inevitable closing of the door.

  
But here it comes, the souring of the hour as fever pitch turns back into the dark of your book-lined lounge. The swill of whiskey in your throat only seems to dry it out more, so you head to the kitchen, find a clean(ish) glass and drink from the tap.

  
Necessity, water, to live - plain water, no frills or flavouring. Like her, a necessity, and one that you continue to drink in, even if it means never ever reaching the end of the glass or even touching the rim.

  
Small sacrifices, just to even have her know your name.

  
_Stop it, Bobby_, she'd sigh. _Stop fighting and just live._ But it wasn't in him to give up, no matter the positives that came from it. Put your mom in a home so you could have a life? No. Accept a scholarship based on "special circumstances"? You'd bag groceries and steal parts from rich dudes' cars to sell to Little Joe on the corner of 4th and 6th before you'd let anyone see you give in.

  
You hate these nights. These piss-poor excuses for thoughts, totally redundant and unnecessary but still they flow, like bad mid-century poetry or a 1970's folk album. Keats, Hall and Oates, Goren versus the volcano that is threatening to erupt every time a scumbag parades his so-called criminal mastermind in front of you, like you haven't seen it all before.

  
Criminals you can handle. You and her, you are completely screwed.

  
**

  
Remember that time you went with her to her sister's wedding? You'd been on call that night and day, awaiting a lead in a case that had been threatening to burst open at any second. The two of you spared the hours, she as bridesmaid in a short informal summer dress of lilac and some shots of silver, you in a work suit and feeling - knowing - the only reason you had been asked was because of convenience and the need for the two of you to be close in case the informant blabbed or the killer struck again.

  
Watching as she combed her hair in the review mirror, arriving seconds before the bridal party because she'd had to get ready on the line at the station. You held the bouquet of irises that had been dropped off by a studious young man named Sam that morning; introducing himself as the brother of the groom, he looked like he was going to piss his pants even being innocent in a Major Crime Squad Room.

  
There, you were 'Goren', here, she said wryly, you were 'Bobby', normal Bobby, smart and witty Bobby who would charm and make everyone in her family fall in love with him. Then she'd smiled, snatched the bouquet and asked, "How do I look?" before bouncing out of the car, as Alex not Eames, and greeted her meringue-esque sister as she floated out of a 1950's Rolls.

  
Beautiful, you answered to the empty car, before getting out, locking it and heading into the church. Hands in your pockets, pulling them out again. Just beautiful.

  
**

  
The ceremony, the speeches, the small talk and conversation a like with guests you'd been sat with - a Naval nurse, a fourth grade teacher with a tongue piercing, a t-shirt designer who'd regaled them with tales of the Eames' sisters younger days (Alex, six years old, interrogating her neighbours and chums after several quarts of her sister's sidewalk lemonade disappeared).

  
"Oh, you're Alexandra's partner!" they'd nod, knowingly, like there was something to know. Like you were a huge puzzle piece in their understanding of Alex-the-Detective, of the life her entire family had chosen to go into. You remember squirming a little, then making some crack about "everything she's said is false!" slipping into another roll of Jolly Policeman-Gentleman-Partner (but not that kind of partner).

  
They listened to your stories of Alex on the job, the cute parts, filled with children and kittens - not the times you'd seen her struggling for composure in face of a kid serial killer who's MO consisted of brutal mutilation with irons, or examining two sets of brains splattered across a New York subway thanks to a lover's pact gone awry.

  
You watched while she too slipped into a role; a delicate free spirited one where she fussed over her sister's dress and played with tiny cousins, giving them high-fives and candy and not knowing in less than a year she'd be playing surrogate to her very own nephew. You watch her, as she grabs a glass of champagne from a passing tray and walks over to you, floating, free, and smiles.

  
"Having fun?" She'd asked, sipping then grimacing, and then swapping the glass for one of orange juice that came flying past your faces. Porcelain sharp features smiling up at you, a slip of fringe in her eyes that you'd wished you could gently brush out of her eyes. You'd blamed that feeling on the roles you were playing, on the knowledge that 150 pairs of eyes were watching you both like a museum instillation.

  
So, instead, you sighed and jollied and laughed; both pretending to be relaxed while totally on tenterhooks. Farcical, was the word. Naïve, a comedy, a satire. But yet, you continued with it because it was so much better than waiting for your phone to vibrate silently in your pocket, screaming you back to the world of MCS and nothing.

  
The DJ, a pimple-faced kid with a wonky tie and pork-pie hat, introduced the 'couple's dance' with a rolling growl that you had to grimace at. She'd made a comment, jokingly, of the inappropriateness of a kid that young knowing a noise that sexual, following with a gulp of her drink and eyes towards the dance floor.

  
'The Girl from North County', Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan, rippin' over the wedding party as smiles turned to contented sighs and bodies that have been grooving apart now came together in mess of hands and suits and mom's best dress.

  
You wonder now what part of your brain switched off (Goren) and why the other (Bobby) took her glass and placed it with the others on the table behind, switching hands to take hers and lead her to the dance floor with even more eyes watching, Her small sounds of protest only mask surprise, but you're buoyed by this Bobby persona, for a second, and she's so tiny anyway she just floats to the floor without any trouble.

  
Height differences don't make this the easiest of tasks, but a switch and a fumble, a few seconds of awkward half-laughs as her fine hands find their place. Your large arms wrap around until you've mastered this necessary arrangement and your steps fall into the beat.

  
A drink, or a smoke, for Dutch courage, to keep your forearms from trembling. But you're a man, a manly man, dancing - dancing! - with your co-worker. Not your lover, or your potential love, but your beautiful, lively, vibrant partner who's shoulders are nearly bare and who's décolletage sets your hair on edge with the possibilities of your tongue, your mouth and fingers; who's body is so close to naked you nearly break off the dance and pretend your pager's gone off because it's suddenly just too hard.

  
No pun intended, you thought wryly.

  
"Goren?" Breaks through the reverie, and a pair of brown eyes stare up. So you do the only thing you know how to do; you smirk in your Goren-way and close the space between your bodies. Clutching her closer than you thought possible. She is warm, like other women, but not. She's tiny, like the perfect size; she's all bones and hair but entirely womanly.

  
The terms 'petite' and 'doll-like' - you hated it when the others called her that. They seemed like put-downs, like they had power over her even though she is the strongest person you know. But at the moment, you can pretend otherwise - make her vulnerable, make her need you. All you wanted to do was clutch her and promise, forever, that she would be safe and warmed and loved.

  
What a hoot. To think he could exist with her as his submissive and not his equal.

  
The languidness of this dance is tempered by the slow, oozing beat of the song. A song about a beautiful woman who was so loved yet was so far away was ironic and fitting and sound; like a bittersweet memory, they were living minute to minute. You just know that when Dylan and Cash are done so are you, you'll have to part and pretend nothing happened and that was too much to bear.

  
So you take her chin in your hand and let your eyes match hers, sending her a silent vow of hope and honesty. For that moment, while you were the only two in the room, she understood, until your pager went off and you both jumped back like you'd been shot.

  
"The Captain," you cough. She nods, and you say your goodbyes and apologies to the wedding party before slipping back into Goren-and-Eames with the ease of a snake shedding its skin.

  
**

  
Midnight's come and gone and you're sitting near the window of your apartment, looking out on the city that never sleeps, sipping a Coke and half listening to the hum of CNN in the background.

  
"Another case solved!" the Captain had crowed, touching Eames' arm and slapping you on the back; like they'd solved the crime of the century, not that this dick who'd killed a primary school teacher and created a shrine to her corpse was anything but one in a long, long list of crazy nutcases in their inbox.

  
This nutcase, at one point, had grabbed Eames' neck and body and used her as a shield in the final play down only hours before. She showed no sign of flinching, waiting, biding her time until such time she could get one straight to the gonads and allow you to fire a sure shot.

  
Her eyes had flicked to your, however, never wavering - you'd been pulled into action by the fear, the pain, the shock locked into them and the bullet struck the assailant in the shoulder, throwing him and Eames to the ground. You pulled the safety, without thinking, allowing the uniforms to deal with the once-tough motherfucker who was howling in pain and about police brutality.

  
_One to the head, jerk, and it would have been justified. _

  
When you reached her, she was still on her knees. Her hands clutched at your forearms as you pulled her up, the slightest tremble not going unnoticed. There was a spatter of blood on her cheek and, without thinking, you'd gotten out your white handkerchief and begun wiping at it, only smearing it more.

  
"Are you - the blood..." She'd nodded, then, without warning, collapsed strongly into your chest and for a moment, you held her like there was nothing else left.

  
**

  
The ambulances gone, the case closed, your shower had and dinner eaten; now it's just you and the city and a million close calls that live forever in your head.

  
_Stop thinking about it, Bobby,_ she'd said earlier. _Stop thinking about what if and think about what is. _

  
But you're thinking, a processor. Everything is the fault of a million what ifs becoming what is-ses, so when you hear the knock on your door you're not entirely surprised. She's on the other side, face scrubbed raw, a pizza in her hands and her handbag over her shoulder.

  
"I've already eaten," you say as way of a greeting, but she rolls her eyes and steps around you into the messy apartment and flops on the couch.

  
"Stop smoking, Bobby," she says, followed by a sigh and you know why she's here, because she can't be alone tonight knowing 'what if' even if she believes in not dwelling.

  
You know whatever happens tonight, it won't end sex, because sex is for lovers and you're everything but. Still, as 1am creeps up and she throws open the pizza box, you know you'll face tonight a little less lonely and see life, as is, and that will do.

  
\-----------------

_Fin._

\-----------------


End file.
